6 Ways Physio Can Treat Your Sports Injuries

Sports can be a fantastic way to keep fit, grow self-confidence, and get to know new people.

Whether you’re a world-class professional athlete or a casual weekend warrior, chances are at some point in time you’ve suffered an injury. In fact, roughly seventy percent of all recreational players experience some type of aches, pains, or discomfort in their joints and muscles in the course of a game. If you play any kind of sports routinely, it’s almost inescapable that you’ll end up injuring yourself over the course of your athletic activities or active life.

That’s because the human body is subject to constant wear and tear. When we carry out repeated motions or activities, our muscles end up being worn-out and start breaking down faster.

In time, these microtrauma wounds can lead to structural injury in the form of muscle stiffness and/or tendinitis. An accidental injury may prevent you from participating in your favorite sport, keep you from the courts or turf for an extended period of time, or result in long-term repercussions including chronic pain or decreased range of movement. Furthermore, if left with no treatment, these injuries can also develop into something more serious in the future.

Sports Injuries And Symptoms That Physiotherapy Can Treat Include:

• Wrist pain
• Ankle pain – sprain
• Rotator Cuff injuries
• Neck pain
• Elbow pain – tennis elbow
• Shoulder injuries – shoulder pain
• Knee Pain

The upside is that a sports injury does not have to keep you off the field or court for long. Physiotherapy treatment can help to treat a wide variety of sports-related injuries and prevent them from becoming persistent. Here are six ways physiotherapy may help cure your sports injury faster and improve your quality of life:

Reinforce Your Existing Muscles

You’ve probably heard this benefit before. Every movement you perform in your sport (such as tossing a baseball, running a marathon, or diving in swimming) requires a specific amount of strength in the muscles you make use of. In the case of throwing a ball, that means the muscles in your shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand. In time though, these muscles can come to be imbalanced and weak.

This problem can come on as we age and our bodies shed muscle mass. It can likewise happen if you’ve been participating in a sport for a very long time without giving your muscles an opportunity to rest and recuperate between rounds of activity.

Fortunately, you can help prevent injuries and enhance your effectiveness on the field with the strengthening workouts your physio therapist can show you. What’s more, building up your existing muscles can help to resolve the discomfort, tightness and inflammation that come with any sports injury.

Treat Tendonitis and Tension

The connective tissue in your joints is prone to swelling and injury as a result of the continual movement of your joints. However, if your inflammation is caused by a tiny tear in the tendon, then physiotherapy can help relieve your tendonitis.

Tendinitis is an inflammatory condition that can develop in your tendons when they come to be irritated and uncomfortable. Some activities, such as running or jumping, basketball and tennis are especially likely to trigger it. If you experience tendonitis or a strain, physiotherapy can relieve your injury faster. It can likewise help you avoid a sprain injury from happening in the future.

Cultivate New Movement and Strengthening Exercises

As you age, your muscles and joints normally come to be less flexible. This could be because of genetics, injury, or an absence of regular physical exercise. In addition, if you’ve been playing a sport for a long period of time, you might have developed structural imbalances that cause you to be more susceptible to injuries. For example, your shoulder muscles may be stronger than your lower back muscles, which puts stress on the lower spine.

If you want to avoid injury and increase your agility, you should attempt to cultivate new movement and strengthening exercises. Your physical therapist can teach you the appropriate exercises to increase your mobility and restore joint performance. Doing so can help to heal an injury, minimize your danger of injury, improve your flexibility, and increase your general range of movement.

Enhance Your Range of Motion

When you’re injured, you often have to limit your activities and/or your range of movement. Because of this, you risk suffering discomfort, stiffness, and loss of flexibility. Thankfully, as you recover, your joints and muscles gain back their complete range of motion.

This process can occur extremely rapidly, but it generally takes about 2 weeks for your muscles to start to heal and get back to their normal shape. To prevent injury and accelerate the recovery cycle, physiotherapy can apply therapies and exercises that improve your range of motion. Doing this can alleviate pain, increase your mobility, and help you get back to your typical activities quicker.

Decrease Swelling and Tightness

As you recover from an injury and your muscles get stronger, you may form an accumulation of scar tissue. This is a regular part of the healing cycle and can help to prevent future injuries. In fact, it can help you return to your normal activities much quicker. To decrease your risk of suffering from tightness, physiotherapy will help you to maintain your range of motion and agility, even when you’re not working out.

Prevent Repetitive Strain Injuries

A recurring strain injury occurs when a previously small injury becomes aggravated as you return to a more extreme level of activity. For example, if you’ve been playing basketball for a few weeks and you attempt to leap higher than you usually do, you could end up reinjuring your ankle.

Repetitive strain injuries can happen in any sport when the typical level of activity is increased, but they’re most common in sports that include repetitive movement, such as weight training, baseball, football, soccer, and basketball. Physiotherapy can ease strain injuries by re-aligning muscles and connective tissues, massaging out knots or discomfort points and raising the blood circulation to the affected part of your body.

Final Word

Physio can help deal with numerous sports injuries, including things like sprains, strains, stress fractures, tendonitis, joint pain, and joint dislocation. Sometimes, you might even be able to protect against injuries from occurring in the first place. If you want to prevent injuries and increase your performance on the field or court, you ought to try Physiotherapy North York.

Physiotherapy can help you strengthen your existing muscles, treat your tendonitis and strain, develop fresh movement and strengthening exercises, enhance your range of motion, decrease swelling and stiffness, prevent repetitive strain injuries, and prevent reinjuries.

Call our team of professionals at Stay Active Rehabilitation in North York and downtown Toronto and let us start relieving the pain and stress of your sports injury.  Now accepting new clients!